Girls

Comments

The comments made about Lena Dunham and “all that nudity” make me think of the time I went topless in the Beaches neighbourhood in Toronto, about ten years ago now. It was a sweltering 35 C (about 95 F, I think). Like Dunham, I have non-fashion-model proportions. My tits are actually small, which illustrates how ridiculous the reactions were that people of all ages leveled at me. I was shouted at to “cover up” even though it’s clearly established in Ontario law that women are allowed to take off their shirts, and I was on public property (sidewalk, boardwalk). Everyone from elderly women to teenaged boys put in their two cents worth about my horrible topless body. I genuinely wonder what reaction I would have gotten had I been a stripper from the Brass Rail on Yonge Street. I am betting it would not have been necessarily positive or supportive: likely, the comments would have been very sexualized, entitled and demanding, when not offended and offensive.